Saaremäe and Punga play chemistry students in summer production

Actors Karl Robert Saaremäe and Oskar Punga play students of the former Tallinn University of Technology in the summer production “Nüüd õpin Mustamäel,” making their parents happy that they have finally become competent chemists, ERR reported.

Speaking on the R2 Hommik programme, Saaremäe said he was building a house and had overexerted himself during the summer. He also missed the Estonian actors’ football team’s Baltic tournament, where the team won a notable victory.

“I would have liked to be on the football team as well, but I did not dare go because the premiere is very close,” Saaremäe said. He added that he had suffered a minor leg injury while dealing with the various stages of building or demolishing a house, and therefore did not even put his name down as a substitute.

Saaremäe said the strangest skill he had learned for a role was memorising his character’s lines by listening to them when he appeared in a summer production by Südalinna Theatre several years ago.

For Punga, unusual skills included rapier fighting and hand-to-hand combat. “But I have enjoyed these things, because I should have these skills anyway,” he said.

Saaremäe joked that his grandfather was proud that he had finally become a student at a practical university. When Saaremäe said he was going to study acting, his grandfather responded dismissively, and after hearing that he would become a freelancer, concluded that he would be unemployed.

“Now he is very proud that I am performing in ‘Nüüd õpin Mustamäel’, which tells the story of students who studied at TPI, and I become a chemist,” Saaremäe said.

Punga said that in the production he plays his mother’s schoolmate. Saaremäe, meanwhile, described himself as “entirely a humanities person” who knew nothing about science subjects.

Punga said he had also considered science subjects at the end of secondary school in case acting did not work out. “I thought that if I did not get into theatre school, I would have to do something practical, but I am still glad that things turned out this way,” he said.

The production contains a great deal of music. Saaremäe said it also sought to preserve the former university’s memory by speaking to people who had studied there at the time and attempting to document their experiences.